In the Garden of Southern Follies and Delights

In the Garden of Southern Follies and Delights

Humor shrubs

Camellias! As hardy as I could find.

I blame the writer Eudora Welty for my recent purchase of camellias (Camellia japonica) for my garden.

A while back, I read Tell About Night Flowers: Eudora Welty's Gardening Letters, 1940-1949, edited by Julia Eichelberger). In nearly every letter to her publisher, Welty mentions her camellias.

I knew as I read the letters that camellias are not hardy

I am the conflicted gardener

I am the conflicted gardener

gardening shrubs

Just a picture of a wooded garden scene

I am the conflicted gardener.

On the one hand, I feel as though I should be buying plants for my garden that will reduce the amount of time, effort, and strength needed to maintain it.

To that end, I ordered two pawpaw trees to plant  where the big viburnums grew until two weeks ago when I had a crew cut them out.

The pawpaw tree is a native tree

Requiem for Two Viburnums

Requiem for Two Viburnums

shrubs

Let us pause to remember the snowball bush, Viburnum opulus ‘Sterile’, for its years of service in my garden.

It provided shelter for birds and blooms for me.  It anchored one corner of the vegetable garden, blocking the view of the compost piles.

It hid more than one weed under its branches, and no doubt a fair number of rabbits sought refuge under its wide boughs.

It taught me to love

Wordless Wednesday - Fall Floral Flotsam

Wordless Wednesday - Fall Floral Flotsam

flowers shrubs

Fall Floral Flotsam on Viburnum

"A bit out of season, but a reminder that every season leaves something behind when it moves on, a remembrance, a bit of debris, some floral flotsam."

The bloom is off the viburnum

The bloom is off the viburnum

fruits shrubs vegetable garden

Strawberry blooms

The bloom is on the strawberry and off the Korean Spice Viburnum.

By golly,  now that it isn't blooming, I think I can remove that Korean Spice Viburnum on the right side of the gate to the vegetable garden after all.  It has a big dead branch in the middle and is right where I want to plant a new honeyberry.

Then I'll move the other smaller Korean Spice Vibnurnum on the

And then it bloomed

And then it bloomed

fruits shrubs

My plan was to cut down the large Korean Spice Viburnum (Viburnum carlesii) on the right side of the gate.

Then I would move the much smaller Korean Spice Viburnum on the left side of the gate to another location in the garden.


After all, the larger viburnum has a big dead branch in it, and it's getting on in years.



Plus, I have two honeyberries, Lonicera caerulea, growing in one gallon